AllMusic 2015 Year in Review
Favorite Metal Albums
There was plenty of heaviness to go around in 2015, with thunderous albums from High on Fire, Mutoid Man and Torche leading the charge. Also, Iron Maiden delivered their first double album, Slayer returned with their first album since the passing of Jeff Hanneman and one-woman black metal act Myrkur unleashed her elegant and evil debut LP.
With a new studio lineup, this continually evolving black metal band deliver their most musically compelling release to date.
A flurry of elliptical, palm-muted riffing as steeped in power metal as it is post-hardcore.
This longstanding Michigan outfit blends a dazzling array of styles into its brand of thrash metal on this ambitious offering.
This concept record reveals the adventurous metal band at their most accessible while still exploring new musical terrain.
The veteran German power metal outfit's first album in five years and a sequel to their much loved 1995 offering Imaginations from the Other Side.
The English alt-metal unit dives headfirst into the mainstream on its fifth studio album.
Recording for the first time as a quartet, these Finns offer their darkest and meanest record in a decade.
After three years and personnel changes, England's symphonic extreme metal horde return creatively rejuvenated.
Fourth album of electronicore mayhem from the Japanese band that inspires as much moshing as it does dancing.
Deafheaven follow up their triumphant breakthrough album Sunbather with a bleak yet ultimately uplifting third full-length.
The Norwegian black metal veterans push hard at the music's boundaries and expand them with an astonishing sonic attack without forsaking tradition.
Reunion set for the alt-rock pioneers is eclectic and unified, their best work since the confounding masterpiece Angel Dust.
Ghost look toward world domination with their most accessible and expertly executed meld of pop, rock, and metal yet.
Fifteen years after its last album, this L.A. quartet returns to glory with monstrous riffs and new ideas.
After a three-year wait, the Bay Area trio come roaring back with an exquisite slab of power sludge.
Eagerly awaited, Maiden's first double album is also their longest and most ambitious -- and deeply satisfying.
After a three-year break this Florida outfit issues another fine exercise in prog-flavored power metal.
The Georgia band, here down to a trio, is more experimental and accessible than ever before.
The band's seventh studio long-player, the cathartic Sturm und Drang arrives at the end of a tumultuous three-year period for the veteran metal outfit.
Terrifyingly unnerving journey into the depths of pain and despair from American black metal icon.
Deviant sex acts and crunching guitars fuel this fun, furious side project from members of Rammstein and Hypocrisy.
With an ever expanding sonic palette, this trio deliver a killer soundtrack for the end of humanity's existence.
On their sophomore full-length, the Northwestern quartet up the ante with a chugging, compelling assault of rhythm and riff.
On their ninth studio album, these icons of evil adopt an unexpectedly blues-steeped style.
To preview a joint European tour, these bands deliver a seamless, epic, two-track split on the themes of life, death, and rebirth.
After a bout with ill health, Lemmy rallies his troops and returns to the studio, bloody but unbowed, and as loud as ever.
On their debut full-length, this outsider power trio blur the genres between extreme music and deliver a stone killer of an album.
On their 25th anniversary, the band deliver a stellar gothic doom album that is deliberately inspired by their early classics.
The Garm-produced debut album from this one-woman black metal band is dark, creative, and innovative.
The Berklee College of Music trio's Metal Blade debut is a mathy, sugary sweet, geek-metal buffet with all the fixins'.
The eighth studio long-player from the Finnish symphonic metal outfit, and the first Nightwish outing to feature new vocalist Floor Jansen.
First album in almost a decade from Portland punk pioneers sounds fresh and unapologetically inspired to try new things.
Sixth ferocious and unrelenting album from this long-running Swedish hardcore band.
The Swiss power trio develops an approach to music where distinctions between conventionally marked genres meet in one place and then vanish.
This Bay area doom act reveal no sophomore slump on this date. Their meld of sounds and textures here is startling.
Shane Embury / Mark "Barney" Greenway / Mitch Harris / Danny Herrera / Napalm Death
After 15 albums and nearly 30 years, Birmingham's extreme metal legends refuse to rest on their laurels and deliver a monster.
International Blackjazz Society
Jørgen Munkeby's ever-evolving "Blackjazz" ensemble add hard rock to their provocative meld of noise, punk, metal and jazz.
Sixth album from Welsh ragga-metalheads packed with a cross-pollinated soundclash of hip-hop, reggae, and propulsive metal.
On their first effort since the death of founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, Slayer look to their past for inspiration.
In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross
The veteran Swedish doom metal outfit's debut album was over 25 years in the making.
Songs from the North, Vols. 1–3
Finland's iconic dark metal band issues a triple album that magnificently and artfully showcases its diversity.
The New Jersey quintet get more aggressive on this epic without sacrificing their trademark power/prog metal sound.
The debut from the powerhouse punk-metal supergroup led by My Ruin guitarist Mick Murphy and Corrosion of Conformity drummer Reed Mullin.
Despite its title, this Detroit metal unit deals out its brightest, fiercest album to date.
You, Whom I Have Always Hated/Released from Love
Collaborative album by two monsters of noisy doom metal includes harrowing covers of Nine Inch Nails and Vic Chesnutt.
A drop-tuned juggernaut of major chord malevolence that distills sludge, doom, pop, punk, and stoner metal into a fist bump that breaks fingers.
The Florida quartet shift gears again, using metal's foundations and melodic hooks as they explore arena rock.
The band's second album goes easy on the psych but heavy on the metal, sounding more Sabbath than Elevators, but still really good.